Here we are, part 2 of CRM Help – 6 Reasons why your growing business needs CRM. In the previous article, we talked about Relationships, Efficiency and how CRM can help with your growing business. In part 2, we will be going a little deeper into the processes and data that you will need to help your business grow.
So, without further ado, here we go.
360-degree view
As we’ve already touched on in the previous blog, having a good CRM system means that you can see every interaction that your team has had with a client, every marketing email that has been sent to a prospect, how successful specific marketing campaigns have been, which clients require the most time and effort, which clients are your most profitable and much more. If you’re putting the data into your CRM, you can have it presented in easy to digest reports that makes making business decisions that much easier.
In short, you will have a complete 360-degree view of your business and everything that comes with it. In my humble opinion as a marketing manager, this is key. If I want to change something at work, I must bring the numbers to my boss. If I don’t think something is working with one of my ad words campaigns, I check the analytics and I change it. This is how I believe any business should be run.
Analysis
While I have already touched on this, I think it is worth dedicating a full section of this article to it. One of the very best features of any good CRM is how easily it can interpret your data and present it in a straightforward easy to interpret format. Yes, you can do this with an Excel spreadsheet, but why? When with a CRM all you need to do is click one button and now you have a dashboard in front of you that will give you a complete bird’s eye view of your business.
Every month the Sales and Marketing team at Collier Pickard get together to go over the last month’s numbers and our thoughts on the next month. This is made much easier by the fact that we have several pre-built dashboards showing call reports, closed deals, ready-to-close deals, lead analysis and more.
Instead of spending hours going through spreadsheets and different data sources, I can quickly and easily generate a marketing report allowing me to tell everyone where our leads have come from, how they found us and check-in with the sales team to see what progress they’ve made with the leads.
Start Small, Think Corporate
If you think big, you must anticipate expansion. When it comes to CRM, that means investing in a system that will grow with you. Continuously having to upgrade and change systems as your needs change isn’t an effective use of your time and money.
It comes down to more than just the CRM itself though, you must also think about the processes that come with it. Every growing business should be looking at the past, present, and future. The past tells you what worked, the present tells you what’s not working and understanding both should secure the future of your business.
If you have the processes in place, the data will come. Make sure you know what data you need to collect, be it time to close on deals, number of customer service cases or campaign performance. If your business is working its way through the correct processes, in time you will see everything that you need to help your business grow.
Whether you are looking for consultancy on the right system for you, don’t know where to start, or already have a system and need training or support the team here at Collier Pickard will help you select the perfect Customer Relationship Management system for your organisation and to help you grow.
